


In a Room Full of Art (All I'd Stare At Is You)

by Some_Impossible_Fairytale



Series: Someone Holds Me Safe and Warm [4]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon Divergence, Drabble, F/M, Greek Mythology References, In which Klaus is absolute trash for Caroline, Klaus rhapsodises about Caroline, True Love, idek, slightly canon, this is legitimately just Klaus drooling over his wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 02:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11454258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Some_Impossible_Fairytale/pseuds/Some_Impossible_Fairytale
Summary: In an art gallery in Rome Klaus can't take his eyes off a certain masterpiece.





	In a Room Full of Art (All I'd Stare At Is You)

 

Klaus has always been fascinated by the story of Hades. Particularly Persephone. There was a man, a God, who had it all – immortality, fear, a dominion which no-one could leave. True there was no sunshine, no grass beneath your feet but there was the one thing Klaus himself had always craved. Permanence. Stability. Life is temporary, Death is forever. Yet he fell in love with Life itself, shrugged off the mantel of strength, discarded the laurels of power to lay them at her feet for one hint of a smile.

It was the one point on which he felt they’d differed, why comparisons with the God of the Dead left him unsettled despite the artwork of the Greek deity that decorates the walls of his various homes. Vampires were not weak, they do not love and they do not care. But he mused, Hades had been weak. Willingly so. Klaus had always consoled himself that where Hades had failed he would succeed. There would be no such temptation for the man who had everything; immortality, eternal youth, fear was his to spread, death his gift. Without any of the dreary paperwork that the artistic renderings of Hades had always glossed over. In his fascination with the God he’d read extensively, strategy was something to be studied, appreciated, all great people knew this.

Klaus took the myth of Hades and gave it (ironically) life.

He had always felt that his Persephone – that Achilles heel – had been left out of his tapestry.

The Fates (those blind bitches) apparently had other ideas. For supposed women of vision they really had to be joking if they didn’t think he would rip the fabric of reality apart to have a good word with them.

Across the gallery he’s currently occupying, Klaus eyes find the woman he’s looking for. Caroline Forbes. His Persephone made flesh.

Though Caroline had been a part of his human life, she had not remained so by whatever strange magic ran in her veins, a beast of its own. Just as Klaus was both wolf and vampire, she was not doppelganger but some kind of phoenix, reborn from her ashes sporadically shadowing his life rather than that of her prior selves. Whereas Henrik had remained forever the little brother torn from his side by the wolves whose own blood Klaus shared, Caroline had returned again and again.

He understands now after lengthy commune with the Other Side to ensure that when she was turned it was not into your run of the mill vampire but as an Original. Henrik had been murdered as an intruder to the pack whereas Klaus as the Alpha’s pup had been spared. The Mikaelson’s had always assumed that Caroline’s death had been similarly reasoned, as a human she was unwelcome at a time of vulnerability for the pack. Yet Caroline as his mate had also been exempt – murder of a mate could end in insanity, inability to lead. Caroline’s death, carefully crafted to be seen as coming at the claws of the wolves had actually been that of Esther, desperate to hide her indiscretion to the extent of murdering an innocent girl.

He was so glad he’s had the sense to rip the old bitch’s heart out.

He had locked away Caroline’s memory with that of Henrik and their human Nik, who’d died with them on the night of that full moon.

The she appeared in that castle, with Tristan, Lucien and Aurora. And the human heart that had withered beneath his chest had surged full of life at the sight of her face. Again and again, with every life she lived. Caroline had refused to stay buried, clawing her way out of the coffin he had constructed for the life they might have once lived in that settlement.

He should have expected no less.

And he had come to understand Hades desperation to keep that bloom alive, the uselessness of it. Klaus had pitied the God for attempting to keep something longer than the fleeting six months he was given. Empathy had swiftly replaced it when the longest Caroline had lived in his presence was five years. That had been the cruellest death in so many ways. To think they had beaten the odds, to the think the Fates would finally be kind. Wondering if the addition of Marcel meant that their journey through life crossing paths had ended. That rather than the triumvirate Klaus, Enzo and Caroline had presented to the world was meant to be a quartet. But no. Klaus will remember to his dying day the look on their son’s face when his Uncle Enzo had brought him by the hand to Klaus. When Klaus had had to explain to the still human ten year old that Mama would not be coming home. Henrik had been with him then, he’d swear it. Hand on his shoulder giving him the strength. But he’d kept going, refused to give up on her each and every time she returned into his arms.

After all, Caroline would expect no less.

Caroline senses someone’s gaze on the back of head, turns and catches his eyes. Oh yes. That smile is everything he imagines Hades saw when he looked at Persephone. Love and life and the tantalising promise of the future.

She tugs lightly on Enzo’s hand and pulls the other Original – Caroline had demanded the elevation in status for both Marcel (a given) and her beloved brother – along with her. Caroline has never left his side throughout eternity, both as a memory and as a lover, drawn together by Fate, biology and choice. She had  chosen Klaus in every life, but she had chosen Enzo too. It had hurt in the beginning. Having to share her, though Caroline would accept no other compromise. Albeit in different ways she had made it clear that she was as much Enzo’s as she was Klaus’.

If it were not for the way Enzo had demonstrated this similar loyalty, proven himself worthy of Caroline’s love in a way the Salvatores, the dopplegangers and the witches never had, Klaus isn’t sure he wouldn’t have told Enzo to go and have a nice eternity elsewhere long ago. Watching them approach, Enzo’s arm hooking itself around Caroline’s shoulder, but keeping their fingers interlinked so that her arm crosses her body, Klaus feels no jealousy at their intimacy.

It is of a more modern bent than the love he bears Rebekah and Freya that’s all. Stronger than _Always and Forever_ too, though the newly minted vampire a thousand years ago would have thought that impossible.

_The blood of the covenant is thicker than the waters of the womb._

Just as he and Caroline had chosen each other, so too had Caroline and Enzo found each other. Enzo gives Caroline a little twirl and she laughs, to the disgust of the gallery attendant but no-one else seems to care. The rich sound bounds around the room, with so many lives upon its walls. It is no sin to add a moment of joy to the ones these faces could tell. It’s a cleverly executed spin, Enzo releases her just as Klaus reaches for her, so that she begins in the arms of one man and ends in another.

“Hey stranger” she breathes in his ear, making Klaus smile indulgently as they have an impromptu waltz rather than a hug.

“Sweetheart” he returns, every ounce of love in the tender grip on her waist, the way his voice caresses the curves of the endearment. God but he wants to taste her. Fuck the mortals and their raised eyebrows. He wants her singing in his veins, for Caroline to give him life literally and return the favour with his own blood.

Although at this point in their extended honeymoon tour of the world  in terms of blood sharing, Klaus is pretty sure that Caroline is made up more of his blood than her own and vice versa. Enzo’s here because apparently it’s also his and Caroline’s own holiday too, Caroline loves multi-tasking despite the fact that she’s now got an uninterrupted eternity to fill.

Klaus doesn’t care. Enzo went to hell and back with him for this woman.

And unlike either Enzo or Caroline, _Klaus_ did grow up with siblings. He can share when he has to.

“Let’s go home” Enzo suggests and the three of them wordlessly fall into step as they exit the gallery. They’re in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, headed back to the villa with its rolling gardens and olive trees on the outskirts that Enzo bought Caroline as a birthday present. It was Bernini’s sensual sculpture of Hades and Persephone that had prompted Klaus’ reflections as he’d watched Caroline and Enzo flit around the building. It’s a place he has visited many times, Enzo several and Caroline never. Normally when they go anywhere, Klaus keeps pace, desiring to hear Caroline’s take on things yet this visit had made him regretfully morbid and reflective. Soon he had fallen behind. Caroline had squeezed his fingers and after hearing Klaus negate her offer to sit with him until the mood passed, moved on. Enzo had waited a moment longer, clapped him on the shoulder and easily caught up with Caroline, spending precious moments basking in her sole attention.

Klaus had met Bernini several times, patronised the young sculptor though he had worked nearly exclusively for the Vatican. This piece must have happened when Klaus was in Florence. It captures the moment when Hades is bearing away his wife to be, grip on her thigh bruising if it were skin and bone rather than marble. Yet Klaus had gleaned another meaning from the rendering, that perhaps Hades grip was to keep his wife within his arms at the terror of her being taken from him.

It is a feeling Klaus knows all too well. Why the last few months have been so transformative for them all and not merely in terms of biology. Caroline has not simply become an Original Vampire, with the additional qualities of a Wolf’s Mate but the Persephone she now is, is a title earned rather than bestowed. A Queen. Queen of Death. A creation of living marble Bernini would be proud of.

Because for so long, Klaus realises as Enzo and Caroline overtake him, strolling through the July sun, just a step too fast to be human, she was not Persephone at all but Eurydice. Every time Klaus turned round he’d feared she’d be gone again, returned to the Other Side where he couldn’t follow. Claimed by the true Hades rather than his representative on Earth.

It’s why Klaus keeps her in front of him always. He may be perfectly self aware of when he’s acting in self preservation and when he’s being truly, truly paranoid (no-one else needs to know that however) but this is something he cannot shake. He has lost in her so many lifetimes that he refuses to turn his back on her ever again.

It reminds him of Vonnegut’s assessment of Lot’s wife turning round to watch the destruction of Soddam and Gamorah. It was so human. Caroline is Klaus’ humanity. And that is why the Original Hybrid no longer rankles with his fascination with Hades, why Persephone has bled her way into his art collection alongside her Godly husband.

They were not meant to walk through life alone.

Caroline’ smile brought the sunshine into his world. Her laughter coloured the flowers, a symphony of birdsong. The genuine beauty of this world was personified by her, bettered by her enjoyment of it. He had walked lifetimes without her and seen all the world had to offer many times. Yet no matter how many times he had visited New Orleans, Rome, Paris, Tokyo his favourite places in the world, surrounded by music, culture, art all he could think about was how much he wanted to show it to her. However long they were given. Whether it be six months or five years.

Except Klaus knew better than Hades; where the God had played by the rules, Klaus had and Caroline had written their own.


End file.
